


We Hold On

by Rubyshade



Category: Half-Life
Genre: F/M, Neil Peart from Rush I miss you every day, copious references to my favorite band without being too heavy handed I think, the vortessence tm, white forest interim fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 15:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubyshade/pseuds/Rubyshade
Summary: It’s a far cry from the world we thought we’d inheritIt’s a far cry from the way we thought we’d share it+++The world Gordon knew is gone. It sinks in. Written for Quantum Entanglement, a freemance zine.
Relationships: Gordon Freeman/Alyx Vance
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	We Hold On

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! This story was written in the late summer of 2020, for Caramujo's Quantum Entanglement zine, a collection of writing and art celebrating freemance. The whole zine can be found here!   
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/16QEA6NFKt1cMuOYfdeZ1eqcgqJQ4yBpB/view  
> I highly recommend it. : )

Not more than twenty-four hours after he mouthed the words “It’s over,” into Alyx’s dusty jacket, the first words he’d spoken in outside of combat in 20 years, Gordon Freeman sat in the White Forest mess hall and tried not to throw up.

The mess hall itself was a long, cool concrete bunker with a curved roof. Gordon thought must have held small planes once upon a time. Noise rebounded off the curved ceiling, sloshing pans and hissing meat and the back-and-forth kitchen chat of the vortigaunts and the human cooks. They had missed breakfast service, and now they sat next to each other in a kind of unexpectant silence, scarfing down what reheated leftovers the cooks had found in the fridge off of scuffed plastic plates and silverware, drinking lukewarm tap water from clean jars, labels long peeled away.

The food was meat chunks, seasoned with something bitter and flavorful, in a tangy, pale sauce. It was not a meat Gordon recognized. There was a pile of something orange and gelatinous, and a roll. The sauce coated his tongue, and Gordon’s lower back cracked as he put his fork down and sipped his water. The cot had not been kind to him, despite being his first human sleep in what felt like a week. He felt bleary, as though many important parts of himself were still asleep on that cot, crooked at odd angles and still as death.

The flavor of the sauce eluded identification. Alyx looked over at him.

“You ok?”

Gordon nodded, tried to speak, cleared his throat.

“Mmhm. It’s, uh. It’s fine.”

The smile that tugged at the corner of Alyx’s mouth stirred something in his stomach, or maybe it was just the meat.

“I guess you’ve never had vort food, huh? Must be…”

She looked thoughtful and a little sad.

“Must be new for you.”

Gordon nodded sheepishly and held up a chunk of meat on his fork, raising an eyebrow in question.

“That?” Alyx said with her mouth full, then swallowed. “It’s headcrab.”

Gordon reached for his water as Alyx stifled a snort. His stomach fluttered again, bitterness still coating his tongue, and he bit into the roll.

It was a faint shade of blue on the inside, and far, far softer than he was expecting. He choked and swallowed quickly. It tasted vaguely of plants. Gordon let out a long breath, garnering a shoulder pat of sympathy from Alyx – how novel to _feel_ it, rather than hear it on the shell of the HEV suit – and put his head in his hands, shuddering with helpless, quiet laughs.

Oh, boy.

Someone sat down across from him, and Gordon looked up.

The circles under Barney’s eyes were deep, but the crow’s feet flared as he grinned, setting his dish down. Another rebel was with him, a lanky young man with a ratty ponytail and a few wisps of air that escaped from beneath an equally ratty beanie.

“Heya, Gordon.”

Barney had only been at White Forest for a few days, but he had settled in with a familiarity that had betrayed past visits. “Got someone here who wanted to meet ya.”

The man in the beanie waved sheepishly. Gordon’s stomach sank. A fan.

“Hi, uh, Mr. Freeman. Doctor! Sorry, Doctor. Doctor Freeman. It’s…”

He stared at Gordon for a long moment. His eyes said wonder and his voice said weariness.

“So good to finally meet you.”

Alyx watched Gordon clear his throat and cough out an embarrassed “Good to meet you.” Neither of them said anything else. A vortigaunt called for something in the kitchen. Barney cleared his throat.

“How’s that grub roll treatin’ ya, Gordon?”

Conversation flowed surprisingly well after that. Tom was one of the youngest people on the base, a communications tech and a tinkerer who ran a small radio shed in the woods past the sawmill, stocked with tapes and a few CDs, precious relics of the before times.

“You play even if no one listens?” asked Gordon. Tom shrugged with a small smile.

“It’s a hobby, really…reminds me of my parents. The combine already know we’re here, so that’s the only reason I got the go ahead to broadcast in the first place.”

“What do you play?”

“Mostly my dad’s old tapes. The Police, a little Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, Rush…

“Rush? _God,_ what I wouldn’t give to hear some Rush.”

“You like Rush?”

“Love them.”

“My dad was a giant fan.”

Gordon laughed, more a cough than a chuckle.

They cleared their plates into a long plastic tray on the kitchen ledge. “Wanna keep me company while I do some work on Dog? I’m gonna tweak the calibration on his elbow pulley and add some stuff to his comms array.” Alyx drained the last of her water and placed the cup in the bin.

The taste of headcrab lingered in Gordon’s mouth and there was a tune running circles around the back of his brain. He tapped his fingers to the rhythm, words half-remembered, the lingering memory of better days…

“Actually, I think I’ll pass for now.”

λ

The radio shed was dim, tucked away in a small clearing beyond the remains of the old sawmill to the north of the main missile base. Tom cracked open the door and midmorning light spilled over a small bank of dials, patched-together cables threading from the back of a boombox up to the bristling antenna on the roof.

“It’s not much, but I know I’m lucky to have it,” said Tom. Gordon nodded in appreciation as he surveyed the equipment. Tom continued as he unlocked a safe beneath the bench and withdrew a box of tapes.

“My parents left me these. My dad…he really tried to impress on me that this was more precious than anything, really. That these were the last artifacts of civilization.”

Gordon picked one up. REO Speedwagon had never been much his thing.

“He always said that when the Combine were kicked off earth and all the aliens and shit were dead, when the sky was back to normal and we could have a good old fashioned barbeque again…that’s what we’d need these for.”

Gordon’s mouth watered longingly. The only barbeque he could recall in recent memory was the smell of a charred, unseasoned headcrab on a spit on the beach.

Tom pulled a tape from the bin and shook it lightly at Gordon. “How about some Grace Under Pressure?”

λ

With a grunt, the last bolt shifted under Alyx’s socket wrench. Dog burbled, and Alyx carefully wiggled the yellow section of his chassis free to reveal neatly bundled cables and blinking machinery.

“See? There’s the port, I told you he had one.” Dog’s faceplate tilted from Alyx to Eli as the elder Vance shook his head with a smile. “Well, I’ll be darned.”

They were in a small room off White Forest’s aircraft hangar, suffused with the brightness of noon. The floor was covered in well-arranged scraps of Dog, pieces of machinery stacked together, bolts piled in small dishes and old cables wound and tied neatly. Shelves along the back wall were replete with metal scraps, scavenged tools, and parts Combine and human alike. A haphazard radio on the shelf piped in thin, fuzzy music, interspersed with Tom’s voice announcing the next song. Dog sat on the ground next to a long worktable, massive forearms laid out before him on the concrete, internals humming as Alyx tapped the plug in the well of his mechanical guts.

“I put it in a couple years ago – thought it might come in handy if we ever picked up a transponder for him.” She leaned back against the workbench and picked up a chunk of scavenged electronics, bolted together with black, unfinished metal braces. Two long antenna sprouted from the top, and a green, multi-pronged tab, laced with gold circuits, protruded from the bottom.

“That thing’s barely a radio, hon. You’ll be lucky if he can transmit twenty feet away.”

Squinting, Alyx maneuvered the chunk into the gap in the machinery, wiggling it with a frown.

“I know, Dad. But until we can pick up a different transponder, or a Combine X-1ϸ socket we can weld in here, I figured at least being able to PICK UP signals would be a decent upgrade for him.” She pulled the radio out and inspected it again, bewildered, then wedged it back into the mechanical depths as Eli “hmm”ed thoughtfully.

“And if he gets a call, he can route it through…”

She sighed. Dog ticked and creaked idly – with his internals exposed, the sound was open and bright.

“Well, we can figure that out. We can ask Tom if he has a little speaker or something floating around. I know I had one back at the Scrapyard, but...”

“Hmm, yeah.”

“Yeah. Pass me that flashlight?”

Eli clicked on a hefty flashlight from a pile of tools and knelt, shining it past Alyx’s arm and into the depths of Dog’s guts. “God knows it would have come in handy, being able to talk to you and Gordon on your way here.”

Alyx wedged her arm to the side, shadows falling over the plug she had installed. “Without Magnusson manning the line, right?”

Eli grinned.

“The least of my concerns, baby. I was worried about _you_.”

Alyx withdrew the radio, glanced at the green-and-gold connector, then down into the depths of Dog where the flashlight shone, eyebrows creasing.

“Maybe it was for the best you couldn’t get in touch with us then.”

An acquiescent sigh from Eli. “If Dog had been there…”

They were both quiet for a moment, squatting on the ground in Dog’s shadow. Eli looked into the socket, then at the radio in Alyx’s hands.

“It looks like an eight-pin, honey. I don’t think it’ll fit.”

“Gordon was there,” said Alyx softly. They both stood. Dog watched and chirruped quietly.

“Uh huh,” said Eli.

“He saved my life,” said Alyx. It was strange, to say it out loud.

She was there again, staring up at a bright, bright circle of sky that hurt her eyes, unsure of anything but the gripping ache in her skull and an iron stiffness in her muscles, knowing only the smell of wet rocks and the singular reek of antlion guts. The cold table against her cheek as she’d turned away from the sunlight above.

She’d seen Gordon before, of course – seen him guarded, wincing in pain as he daubed medkit gel on shrapnel wounds, calculating behind glass doors, coming to in Dog’s hands. But nothing struck her like the face she’d seen as she screwed her eyes open on that table – a man overcome with awe, completely vulnerable and fearful and awestruck, joy bubbling up in a grin that split his face as he had oh-so-carefully embraced her.

You didn’t see those faces often under the Combine.

Alyx came back to herself and looked up at Eli, who was watching with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Earth to Alyx…”

Alyx flushed.

“You know. That’s just. Weird to think about. Hey, pass me that hammer?”

Eli was humoring her and reaching for the distraction when a motion in the door caught both Vance’s eyes. A vortigaunt entered the room.

“Greetings, Vances. The Alyx Vance, requested this?”

The vort handed Alyx a thin black adapter, which she slotted onto the radio’s prongs in amazement.

“Wow, thank you!” She pulled a bundle of cables that ran across Dog’s internals and looked. “That looks like it should do it.”

The vort bowed their head. “This one is pleased to have been of help.” It turned to leave.

“Wait, wait a sec.” They paused. “You said I _asked_ for this? I didn’t ask anyone for an eight to ten pin coax adapter.”

“Many things pass through the Vortessence,” said the vortigaunt. “My kin are naturally attuned to its eddies. Since your healing in the mines, the Alyx Vance has been connected to the Vortessence, more than the average human. This one heard your frustration at not having the correct parts, and knew where to find the one which was needed to repair your esteemed companion.” The vort laid a tentative hand on Dog’s partially-assembled chassis as Alyx plunged her arm into the pit of wires. The radio snicked into place, and Dog jerked in surprise, stiffening. The aperture of his eye expanded and contracted, and he purred in wonder.

“Wait, so if I’m connected to the – Vortessence, can you like…hear my thoughts?”

“It may be worth the meditation to explore the connection for yourself.”

“Unbelievable,” murmured Eli.

“But _can_ you? I mean, you...knew I needed that part.” Eli passed Alyx the missing half of Dog’s shell and she began to line up the threads. The vort grumbled in thought.

“It is...more subtle. This one finds it difficult to explain to those who are not born with an innate sense. You and the Freeman are close to us,” Eli’s eyebrow went up, “but we cannot tell you the nature of your connection. That is something only _you_ can discern.”

“Ok...can we at least start with whether I’ve asked for other things before? I mean…”

“I will try to assist you in your awareness.”

“Wait, don’t I have to be like…

Dog wiggled as Alyx tightened the last bolt.

_Half dead for that?_

“Hardly. The Vortessence is…that which vortikind holds between ourselves. Simply think of that which…supports you.”

λ

In the radio shed, Gordon sat in a moth-eaten office chair, eyes closed and let the music wash over him. If he imagined it just right, it was as though nothing had changed. He was in his dorm again, and the biggest thing he needed to worry about were his deadlines…

λ

“Should I close my eyes?” Alyx asked, wry.

“It is not necessary, but it may help.”

Alyx leaned back on the worktable, listening to the radio in the corner…the sunlight that poured in through the skylight suffused her. Her mind flew briefly to the feeling of leaning on the HEV suit in a ramshackle elevator, hands tacky with her own blood…

λ

The brightness of the afternoon sunlight dimmed, and Gordon opened his eyes. Tom was standing over him. He was holding a length of pipe.

“Sorry about this,” he said.

λ

The bottom of Alyx’s stomach lurched, and she gripped the workbench. Dread bloomed softly in her stomach, like ink spreading in water.

“You getting anything, honey?”

“Like someone walked over my grave,” she replied. “I thought I heard someone talking?”

Eli frowned. “Am I…supposed to be hearing it too?”

The vortigaunt held up a hand and shook their head, large eye widening. Everyone in the room looked to the radio on the shelf. A voice cut through the noise that fuzzed the signal. It was low and carried the grunt of a vocoder.

Dog shook himself and his new antenna, roared and broke for the door.

“Combine,” whispered Eli.

λ

“Comms triangulated the signal to out past the dam, on the other side of the creek where Alyx and Doctor Freeman came up,” said Murph, knocking her pen against the paper map on the wall. “Calhoun and a couple scouts are heading out now to get an idea of how many we’re looking at. Is Doctor Freeman around? We might need his talents, though I hope it won’t come to that…”

“He’s out at the radio shed with Tom.” Alyx realized. She stood. “I’ll get him.”

λ

Gordon came to blearily on the cool ground. His head pounded in time with his pulse. He was outside. His glasses were gone, but he could see trees, turquoise-green in the shade. It looked like it was beginning to rain, flecks of liquid spilling down into the dirt.

Tom’s voice came into focus.

“Look, you have to – I, I made a deal. And _this_ is my part of it.”

A pair of tall black boots and white armored legs. Tom had a lot of guts to be mouthing off to a Combine Elite like that.

Wait.

Shit.

“I got _Gordon Freeman_ for you, and you’re going to turn over the equipment.”

He looked up with an effort. His wrists burned and didn’t move – they were probably bound. One of the trees moved, and rain showered suddenly into the dirt. There was an insectoid click and a digital bark. Something prodded him roughly.

He lay still then, heart pounding. He had no weapons, not even the HEV suit. He knew too well what Hunters did to people like that.

The Elite spoke. “Affirmative. Deal was made with mobile unit CMB_CYGX-1, now extirpated. I am under no obligation to honor such a deal.”

“Hey, wait,”

The white legs shifted, ready. “It was agreed you would retain your life. The deal will not be altered farther.”

“I…”

The click of a AR2.

“…Ok. Ok! Ok. Fine. Fine.”

Pebbles crunched under boots, and Tom’s voice grew more distant. A boot connected with Gordon’s shoulderblade, and a glove knotted in the back of his collar and dragged him to his feet with inhuman strength.

The Elite was dulled to a matte grey by dust, spattered with brown mud and blood. The late sunlight picked up a long scratch across the red lens of its helmet, and Gordon distantly searched for facial features in the shapes behind it, finding none.

They looked at each other for a long second, then it began to reach for its radio.

λ

Unease grew in the pit of Alyx’s stomach as she approached the radio shed. She slowed, then halted.

It was just the shed. She had been here before.

Something occurred to her.

She sifted through memories, searching for a different feeling in her gut. Something warm, like wonder.

It occurred to her then that she was going the wrong way. Alyx rolled her shoulder, suddenly aching, and stepped off the path into the bushes.

λ

There was no warning. Gordon was looking into the inscrutable red eye, and then a mechanical roar split the air and Gordon was staggering backwards as Dog landed feet-first on the Elite, which crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll. The Hunter shrieked and leaped forward unsteadily, raising a foreleg to swipe at the huge machine – Dog grabbed the needled paw in a heavy fist. The Hunter stumbled, spitting in rage. Dog answered with another roar and swung for its body, connecting with a heavy _thwack_ , battering the trapped synth again and again until it let out an ear-piercing shriek and lay still in a pool of grey fluids.

Dog coughed after a moment and turned quizzically towards Gordon and Tom, creaking. Tom took in the massive machine, eyes flickering over him as he sidled forward. Panic spread on his face, eyes darting from Gordon to Dog, and he turned and fled into the woods.

λ

Alyx had been running since she heard the Hunter’s scream. She was only a little winded when she burst into the clearing to see Gordon sitting on the ground next to a dead Combine Elite and the remains of a Hunter, staring blankly at the bushes.

“Gordon!!”

His head snapped towards her, and his face cracked open with relief.

“Alyx.”

She skidded to a halt in front of him, dropping to her knees in the dirt, taking his face in her hands before she could think.

“You’re ok. Ok. Ok.”

Something brown flaked onto her hand.

“Oh, my god. This is blood. What happened?”

Gordon blinked up at her, then let out a long, low sigh, seeming to crumple into himself. He looked more in pain then than he had in the past minute. Alyx put a hand on his shoulder.

“…Gordon?”

He made to get to his feet – Alyx put her arm around him to support him. God,

He cleared his throat, looking around.

“My glasses.”

Alyx sighed. “Yeah.”

λ

The radio shed was still as dusty as Alyx remembered, though the telltale signs of a struggle. Gordon’s glasses were neatly folded on the table before front of the radio receiver, and she wiped them with the hem of her shirt before passing them to Gordon, who accepted them gratefully.

“So Dog went after Tom and you haven’t seen them since.”

She turned to Gordon, who shook his head. He was holding something small and rectangular, and he looked weary.

There had never been a moment like this before - a moment where she seemed bigger than him, where neither of them really knew what to do next. Alyx hesitated, then spoke.

"Gordon..."

“I wanted it to be true.”

Alyx’s eyebrows furrowed. Gordon sighed.

“Alyx, I…”

She stood beside him. He was holding the pieces of a cassette, crinkled black tape laying across his hand in ribbons.

“I never got to tell you this, but I haven’t…”

His already quiet voice dropped to a whisper.

“I was…asleep, for twenty years. It’s not a metaphor,” he forestalled Alyx’s question. “I can’t – explain it any better. After Black Mesa. And when I woke up, my world was gone.” He looked at her. “You – you’ve known this world your whole life, but I’ve only known it for about seven days.”

“Oh.” The word was a ghost in Alyx’s mouth.

“Hmm.” Gordon looked back at the cassette. “I just thought that maybe…there was a chance I could go back. How many things have tried to kill, maim, kidnap, eat me at every opportunity the past few days…”

_How many things I’ve killed…_

He leaned into Alyx then. She tensed in surprise, then put her arm around his shoulder.

“God, Gordon…I. I can’t even imagine.”

Their heads touched. He shivered and coughed. With a start, Alyx realized he was trying not to cry.

“I’m lost.”

Alyx gripped his hand, warm and human. He continued.

“I’d _be_ lost. If it weren’t for you.” 

“Gordon – “

“You saved my ass so many times even if – if you don’t know about it. You’re – I wouldn’t - “

Alyx took the cassette from him without resistance. He took his glasses off, sniffed.

“Thank you. For. For everything.”

Now _I’m_ supporting _him,_ Alyx realized like a thunderclap. She smiled and held him closer.

“What kind of survivors would we be if we didn’t help each other?”

She stepped away, lay the fragments of cassette on the dusty windowsill, and they looked at each other. Her heart was pounding. He laughed, tired but not beaten.

“I guess that’s what it’s all about.” There was a smile growing in his eyes.

She took his hands in hers. There was a big, stupid smile growing on her face, she realized. How incredible that this was the man who plunged into the antlion’s den to save her life. How wonderful. How heartbreaking.

They could feel it. Both of them could. So they kissed each other, and they held onto the other’s hand like letting go meant death itself.

λ

Dog showed up at White Forest hours later, waddling on his hind legs and clutching Tom under the arms like a kitten. A group of rebels, Barney in front, were there to meet him. The radio operator’s voice could be heard across the yard, thin with anger.

“I just wanted to _help!_ I heard the rumors same as all of us that it’s Freeman’s fault the world’s so fucked up in the first place. The Combine have better tech than us! They have waveform sculpting like we can’t even dream of! Superconductors! Being able to easily communicate with other cells across the continent? Imagine! Imagine finally being able to _coordinate_ and get the scum off our planet once and for all! Get back to _normal!”_

“Save it for the jury, kid.”

“We have a jury?”

“Can it, Pardí.”

They took him inside, and Dog bounded over to where Gordon and Alyx sat on a pile of crates, watching the sun fall behind the mountains. The great floodlights of the courtyard flickered on.

“Turns out there weren’t any Combine troops at the river after all.” Barney followed Dog over to the pile of crates and leaned on the wall next to Gordon and Alyx. “We swept the whole area, and we found was a shitty little radio transponder with a Combine chatter recording hooked up. I’m no engineer, but…”

“Tom had the skills. It was a good plan, to distract the base while he tried to pass Gordon off.” Alyx sighed.

“He wasn’t counting on _you_ though, that’s for sure.” Gordon smiled, and Barney grinned at her. His eyes lingered mischievously on Gordon and Alyx’s hands, laced together between them. “You two lovebirds off tomorrow? Eli gave me the scoop on the helicopter, says it’s ready to fly.”

“The medics want to give Gordon a day or two to make sure he’s not concussed, but…yeah, soon.” She squeezed his hand. Dog butted his head gently against her, and she gripped his faceplate and pushed him away playfully. Gordon’s stomach growled.

“Hey, you wanna go grab some grub?”

Gordon chuckled.

“You know, that used to be a figure of speech.”

They stood and went inside, Barney and Dog ahead of them. The helicopter and the Borealis lay in their future, and they were as ready as they could ever be to face them. With each other.

λ

_Keep holding on so long  
‘Cause there’s a chance  
That we might not be so wrong  
We could be down and gone  
But we hold on_

_-_ Neil Peart


End file.
